Identifying The Critical Capabilities of Enterprising People: The Success Story of Steve Jobs

Entrepreneurship skills play an important part in upholding the efficiency of the business operations while operating in different markets.  The key aspects of change in the organizational operations are reliant on the decisions and the long term visionary of a leader. On the other hand, the risk taking principle of an entrepreneur serves as a growing opportunity towards the improvement of the firm’s position in the markets. In this connection, the report will identify the entrepreneur’s role played by Steve Jobs and will assess the entrepreneurship journey in the light of the FACETS model. The overall research will be initiated with the purpose of identifying the entrepreneurship skills in Steve Jobs and the manner in which it contributed to the competitive edge of the organizations.

Steve Jobs was born in the year 1955 and was an American businessman, owner and CEO of Apple Inc. and Pixar Animation studios (Becraft 2016). His early life started in San Francisco and went to Reed College for a semester before he dropped out of the institute. In the year 1974, Jobs took the position of a video game designed with Atari after what seems to be a long wait for a technological field of his choice (Yun, Jung  and Yigitcanlar  2018). Next Steve took to business and introduced himself as a businessman in the Silicon Valley and was closely associated with Apple. Steve Jobs along with Wozniak founded the Apple Inc. in the year 1976 and since then contributed immensely to the growth of the organization among its competing firms (Hammershøj 2018).

The continuous innovation that was made by Apple Inc might be accredited to the ideas and leadership of Steve Jobs as the empowered the employees and motivated the same to come up with innovations. In an interview held in the year 2007, Wozniak stated that at their time very few people were aware of the chips and computers when he and Jobs started designing computers (Levy 2016). Moreover, Wozniak commented that he and Steve Jobs had an independent attitude towards work which helped them a lot in setting up the organization (Bell 2017). In the later years, Wozniak and Jobs conceived a series of computers with Jobs as the marketer for the organization where Apple I earned a revenue for the organization of about $774,000 and the introduction of Apple II raised the sales revenue of the organization by 700% (Facts and Dagen  2016). It was noted that the continuous innovations made by the organization was made through the active support and contribution of Steve Jobs and Wozniak.

However, in the next few years, the organization faced stipulating competition from the existing players like IBM in the market. Jobs was moved to a marginalized position in the organization believing that he was affecting the operational sustenance of the venture. Jobs introduced a new hardware and software enterprise named NeXT Inc. in the year 1985 after leaving Apple (Hammershøj  2017). The organization flourished and was later acquired by Apple Inc. Again in the year 1986 Steve Jobs purchased an animation company from George Lucas and entitled it as Pixar which merged with Walt Disney in the year 2006, leaving Jobs as the largest shareholder of Disney (Becraft  2016). In the year 1997, Jobs returned to his post of a CEO in Apple Inc and started instigating the organization towards its success through improved modeling and campaigns. The innovative genius of Steve Jobs critically supported the success of the organization while empowering the future steps towards sustenance. Today, Apple Inc. is counted among most of the trusted brands with increased innovativeness.

The FACETS model by Bolton and Thompson will be considered for identifying the critical skills and techniques of an entrepreneur. The imposition of theFACETS model would support in identifying the Focus, Advantage, Creativity, Ego, Team spirit and Social attributes of Steve Jobs while evaluating his role in the organizational operations. The current section will enumerate the different critical elements of the model.

The research will be conducted through reviewing different literatures based on entrepreneurship theories and the biography of Steve Jobs. The analysis of the different entrepreneurial characteristics of Steve Jobs will be made through assessment of the literatures on his leadership style while merging the entrepreneurial qualities of Jobs with the FACETS model as a reference. The major focus of the research will be to identify the entrepreneurship traits that are reflected through the overall activities and decisions that were taken by Steve Jobs while playing his role as an entrepreneur.    

The research on the entrepreneurial role of Steve Jobs helped in identifying the different skills and techniques that were reflected by the activities of the same. The application of the concepts of the FACETS model on the entrepreneurship roles of Steve Jobs, it has been observed that he was a visionary, a change initiator, a motivator, an innovator who took responsibility for the operations and the like. The decision making skills of Steve Jobs specifically depended on identifying the urgency of the situation and the change that might be realized by an organization.  According to Garud, Gehman and Tharchen (2018), the decision making skills of an entrepreneur is reliant on his understanding of the organizational situation or the urgency faced by the same for change. The decisions that are taken by Steve Jobs in crucial situations of the organizations are based on his knowledge on managing the operations and understanding of the urgency. He prioritized every change in the organization in accordance with the rate of urgency that is associated with the same.

The decisions that were initiated by Jobs in every business was based sound knowledge of the markets which was again a critical entrepreneurial skill empowering the decision making capabilities. It has been observed that Steve Jobs played a pivotal role in the organizations while making decisions and delivering the outcomes within the deadlines for the continuous development of the businesses. Jakob et al. (2019) stated that adherence to deadlines act as a sustenance measure for an organization and an entrepreneur is required to improve the organizational processes continuously while adhering to the deadlines.  Therefore, it has been observed that Steve Jobs played an important role in improving the operational processes of the organizations through his sense of urgency, as he prioritized the business needs in accordance with the market changes and applying the decision making capabilities thereby.

The long term vision of Steve Jobs is again an important consideration that must be made while discussing on his entrepreneurial role in the organizations like Apple Inc. and Pixar. The market based knowledge of the entrepreneur empowered his understanding of the different changes that the organizations might require. The long term vision of Steve Jobs contributed to the continuous change in the business processes and the offerings. According to Minarcine and Shaw  (2016), the different modifications in the business models based on long term vision of the entrepreneur supported in continuous growth and expansion of the ventures. On the other hand, Dhaliwal (2016) opined that the long term vision of an entrepreneur specifically creates a risk aversion for the ventures while avoiding the uncertainties. Therefore, the long term vision of Steve Jobs supported the growth of the organizations while identifying the uncertainties and creating mitigation strategies for the same.

The creativity of Steve Jobs can be witnessed from his capability of turning an idea into action. The innovativeness and creativity of Steve Jobs is reflected from his capability of remodeling the design of the proposition and the manner in which he reinvented the management approach for influencing growth in his organizations. Vallée-Tourangeau and Vallée-Tourangeau  (2018) observed that innovation based capability of a leader plays an important role in empowering the business processes while developing new propositions as per the changing market demand. Steve Jobs played an efficient role in identifying the market trends and developing the design of the proposition and the processes to improve the rate of organizational sustenance. In an instance, during the research it was found that the genius of Steve Jobs was manifested when he had specific idea on computer chips while others in that generation was unaware. The technical knowledge of Steve Jobs added to innovation capability of the same while operating in the markets. According to Lorenzo, Kawalek and Wharton (2018), the experience and skills of an entrepreneur contributes to the development of different innovative practices in an organization. In this connection, the different changes that are initiated by Steve Jobs in the organizations were specifically aimed at improving the rate of operations of the venture through creative solutions.

Steve’s dedication towards the operations is specifically observed through the hard work and endurance he possessed. Steve Jobs was dedicated to the different business operations and took full responsibility of the different processes that were planned under his name. The different changes in the organizational operations are reliant on the effective functioning of the different systems in accordance with the common goals of the venture. Self assurance and motivation towards work are the biggest qualities that might be observed in Steve Jobs. Lu et al. (2017) ascertained that the self assurance towards a work process, motivation towards completing the goals and accountability for a process are the major virtues of an entrepreneur while operating as per the common goals of the venture.

Moreover, Bogoviz et al. (2018) stated that risk taking capability of a leader is again a bigger step that leads to critical success factors in the long run. It has been observed that Steve Jobs was motivated towards every job role he was intended to undertake, even when he drifted from Apple and established his own organization. In specific terms he took the full accountability and credit for the different operational processes that went well. He worked as a motivated and a motivator in the organization while empowering innovativeness and continuous engagement among the employees. According to Rauch (2019), the chief responsibility of an entrepreneur is to keep the workforce motivated with the purpose of improving their rate of involvement in the different business operations. In this connection, Steve Jobs took the initiative of motivating the employees and encouraging their active participation in the different innovative processes that are being planned by the venture for achieving the collective goals in respect to the deadlines and priorities.

The communication skill of Jobs was a way ahead than motivation for the employees. He had a charismatic personality with autocratic nature. The steady oratory and verbal communicational skills of Steve Jobs did not only motivate the workforce but also left a huge influence on the operational culture in the organizations. In this connection, Burchardt et al. (2016) observed that effective communication skills of an entrepreneur is not only required for making the stakeholders aware of the clear intention of the business but also to motivate and encourage involvement of the same in the different processes. Again, it has been observed that the organizations, under the influence of Steve Jobs developed a collectivistic culture where the operations were undertaken on the basis of collaboration between the teams.

Garud, Gehman and Tharchen (2018) reflected in a research that an entrepreneur induces collaboration in th4e workplace with the purpose of improving the productivity and quality of the operations. In this connection, the improved communicational and delegation skills of Steve Jobs contributed to the effective workforce planning and allocation of resources in accordance to the changing business needs. Therefore, from the above analysis it might be noted that the entrepreneurial skills of Steve Jobs assisted the organizations in improving the operational models while encouraging the maximum involvement of the different stakeholders in the processes.

Therefore, from the above analysis it might be stated that Steve Jobs inherited the skills of a perfect entrepreneur with a long term vision, better decision making capabilities, delegation and communicational skills, a dedicated approach towards operations, accountability and the like. The numerous entrepreneurial qualities of Steve Jobs assisted in improving the design of operations of Apple Inc. and the success is reflected through the market holdings of the venture. The work culture and frequent innovations in the business operations are accredited to the genius brain of Jobs.  The research aimed at identifying and evaluating the critical entrepreneurial qualities in Steve Jobs in the light of the FACETS model for systematic identification of the different qualities.

The research is specifically based on reviewing existing literature on entrepreneurship qualities and the biography of Steve Jobs while contemplating on the FACETS model. However, the research might not produce an in-depth study as no interviews were conducted with the employees who existed in the time of Jobs’ leadership. Interviews would have helped in developing in-depth study on the entrepreneurial phenomenology of Steve Jobs. However, it was not possible for collecting responses through interviews due to cost and time constraints.

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